With a conference in Jelgava, the two-year work on the cross-border project “fit4future” concluded in march. The project purposefully built a connection between modern education and labor market demands. Through the professional development of educators and practical activities for youth, the Zemgale Planning Region, together with the municipalities of Bauska, Pakruojis, and Biržai, has managed to make a lasting contribution to strengthening the regional STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) ecosystem.
Educators themselves play a significant role in bringing the created ecosystem to life, which is why the project provided extensive opportunities for professional development. In search of practical ideas for integrating STEAM into daily work, education specialists from Zemgale and Northern Lithuania went on experience-exchange visits to the Daugavpils Innovation Centre and the city of Turku in Finland. The Nordic visit vividly demonstrated that this approach yields the best results when purposefully integrated across all levels of education, starting from preschool age, naturally combining exact sciences with creativity. Meanwhile, at the international networking event “Tech Camp” in Jelgava, teachers from both countries engaged in creative experiments themselves, exploring the role of emotions in the learning process and looking for ways to create a moment of surprise in lessons and bring the learning material to life. Alongside this, during local-scale training sessions in Jelgava, Jēkabpils, Bauska municipality, as well as in Pakruojis and Biržai, educators learned to work with artificial intelligence, 3D scanning, virtual reality tools, and robotics. The acquired knowledge will allow educators to make the daily learning process more dynamic, arousing students’ natural interest.
Answering the frequently asked question by students, “Where will this be useful to me in life?”, the project offered a broad program of practical activities, allowing teenagers to “learn by doing.” Young people from schools in Zemgale and Northern Lithuania had the opportunity to visit the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU) to study cells in laboratories and test innovative food packaging technologies. In turn, the connection between theory and the real labor market was clearly demonstrated by visits to Latvian and Lithuanian entrepreneurs, where students saw first-hand how research turns into commercial products. Alongside this, a joint STEAM summer camp took place, as well as an international robotics competition in Bauska, which confirmed the engineering capabilities of the youth. Also, in a joint competition, students from both countries sought innovative solutions to real-life urban environment challenges. This diverse experience helped young people realize that the physics, chemistry, and mathematics learned at school are not just dry theory, but a practical foundation for a successful future career.
To ensure the continuity of project activities and promote further cooperation, the involved experts have developed practical recommendations for maintaining the STEAM community ecosystem in the region. This will also be facilitated by the material and technical additions acquired within the project—the educational institutions of the participating municipalities have received “ClassVR” virtual reality systems, smart boards, new laptops, as well as robotics and natural science experiment kits. Thus, the project concludes not only with new knowledge and international contacts but also with modern infrastructure that will serve as a foundation for an innovative learning environment in the future.
